Why didn't she take out a revolver, cover him in the conventional style, and open the door for her friends in the hall? Or had she noticed that his right hand was still in the pocket of his coat? As a test he withdrew the hand. She did not appear to observe the movement. The word "baffled" had always appealed to him as blood-and-thunder stuff; but now he began to understand that it was a serious and substantial condition of the mind.
"You're welcome, any way you desire it. I'll tell you what. I'll write a letter I had in mind. It will serve to relieve you of your embarrassment. It certainly will relieve mine."
He opened one of the kit-bags and dug out his letter-portfolio. He cleared a space on the table and sat down, facing the young woman, though apparently giving her no more attention. He started the letter, paused, tore up what he had written, and tossed the bits to the floor. The next attempt seemed to be successful, for he wrote several pages, finally sealing it in an envelope. Had the woman been able to read the contents of this letter she would have been profoundly astonished. It was a minute description of her, from the tortoise-shell comb in her hair to the white sandals on her feet.
He re-read the document; and as he came to the end of it he missed something, an essential which impressed him previously. Covertly he ran his glance over her again. Something was gone, but he could not tell what it was.
For all that she did not appear to be doing so, he knew that not a single move he made escaped her. Often he gazed at the kit-bags, but never did he let his glance stray anywhere near the waste-basket.
He wondered. Supposing the two visitations, the second ignoring the first as though it had never happened—supposing they had been launched for the express purpose of baffling and bewildering him, eventually causing him to lower his guard? Here at last was a solution that had a grain of sense.
Mathison rose and filled his pipe.
"You won't mind if I smoke and jog about a bit? I'm restless. I've had a long attack of insomnia."
"Please pay no attention to me."